Skip to main content

Sebi Clears Options Trading in Commodities


Market watchdog also mandates monitoring agency for cos raising more than Rs 100 crore in IPO
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has taken the first major step towards development of the commodity derivatives market by approving introduction of  options contracts since taking over the market's regulation in September 2015.
The Sebi board, which me to n Wednesday , made it mandatory fo r companies raising more than Rs 100 crore through initial public offering (IPO) to appoint a  monitoring agency to keep track of the use of funds and barred Non-resident Indians (NRIs) and entities owned by them from subscribing to participatory notes.
“In addition to amendment to the regulation, we also need amendments in the rules, which we will pose it to the government very quickly . I don't want to give  timeframe but this certainly is priority for commodity derivatives market and high priority for us,“ Sebi chairman Ajay Tyagi said during the press conference post  board meeting.
Tyagi said that options in commodities will devolve into futures contracts and that detailed guidelines would be worked out in due course.
“The details will be worked out but it will result in derivatives and not cash because derivatives is regulated by Sebi and spot markets are not. So it will be a  different kind of option.“
On institutional participation, he said that entry of players like mutual funds, banks and insurance companies will be facilitated once an expert committee formed at  government level recommends how synergy between spot and futures markets could happen.
Another important measure that Sebi took is to allow merger of the commodity broking arm with the equity arm of a broker. This will allow margin fungibility and  improve risk management besides ensuring more efficient use of a client's capital, said exchange and broking officials.
The Economic Times New Delhi, 27th April 2017

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Household debt up, but India still lags emerging-market economies: RBI

  Although household debt in India is rising, driven by increased borrowing from the financial sector, it remains lower than in other emerging-market economies (EMEs), the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said in its Financial Stability Report. It added that non-housing retail loans, largely taken for consumption, accounted for 55 per cent of total household debt.As of December 2024, India’s household debt-to-gross domestic product ratio stood at 41.9 per cent. “...Non-housing retail loans, which are mostly used for consumption purposes, formed 54.9 per cent of total household debt as of March 2025 and 25.7 per cent of disposable income as of March 2024. Moreover, the share of these loans has been growing consistently over the years, and their growth has outpaced that of both housing loans and agriculture and business loans,” the RBI said in its report.Housing loans, by contrast, made up 29 per cent of household debt, and their growth has remained steady. However, disaggregated data sho...

External spillovers likely to hit India's financial system: RBI report

  While India’s growth remains insulated from global headwinds mainly due to buoyant domestic demand, the domestic financial system could, however, be impacted by external spillovers, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said in its half yearly Financial Stability Report published on Monday.Furthermore, the rising global trade disputes and intensifying geopolitical hostilities could negatively impact the domestic growth outlook and reduce the demand for bank credit, which has decelerated sharply. “Moreover, it could also lead to increased risk aversion among investors and further corrections in domestic equity markets, which despite the recent correction, remain at the high end of their historical range,” the report said.It noted that there is some build-up of stress, primarily in financial markets, on account of global spillovers, which is reflected in the marginal rise in the financial system stress indicator, an indicator of the stress level in the financial system, compared to its p...

Retail inflation cools to a six-year low of 2.82% in May on moderating food prices

  New Delhi: Retail inflation in India cooled to its lowest level in over six years in May, helped by a sharp moderation in food prices, according to provisional government data released Thursday.Consumer Price Index (CPI)-based inflation eased to 2.82% year-on-year, down from 3.16% in April and 4.8% in May last year, data from the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) showed. This marks the fourth consecutive month of sub-4% inflation, the longest such streak in at least five years.The data comes just days after the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) Monetary Policy Committee cut the repo rate by 50 basis points to 5.5%, its third straight cut and a cumulative reduction of 100 basis points since the easing cycle began in February. The move signals a possible pivot from inflation control to supporting growth.Food inflation came in at just 0.99% in May, down from 1.78% in April and a sharp decline from 8.69% a year ago.A Mint poll of 15 economists had projected CPI ...